Do Not Rush Me Please…
Published May 7, 2022
Last week was the birthday of my dearly beloved soul sister, Lillian Pearl Bridges, who passed last summer. The following poem is something I happened to come across this morning in my journal, which I originally wrote on the darkest night of the year, last December 21, 2021, the winter solstice. Little did I know then that the grief would just keep coming, in tidal waves, ebbing and flowing, slowly becoming a part of me as I learn to adjust to this new reality of life without Lillian, who passed within weeks of my old dog Nilson.
My puppy Fridolin is snoring by my side, helping to bring new life and happiness into my quiet home. But Lillian? The hole of Lillian’s physical absence has forced me to step into the role of an older woman, and a guide to my own younger sisters in turn, with more confidence and authority. No longer can I just send any lost souls to Lillian for wise counsel. So rather than saying nothing, I try to channel her and pass on what she taught me. And I have tried to step up to what she always called my “Golden Path,” to honor her legacy and pass her gift on. But my losses have also caused countless dark hours and days and exhausted me to my core, causing me to question everything I am and do and want.
Why do I dwell on my sadness, you may ask, and share such a private sentiment in a public blog? The short answer is, I don’t know either but my heart is telling me to. In this particular moment, which I perceive as a combination of a pandemic in its second (or is it third now? I don’t even want to keep track any more!) year, global environmental meltdown, potential World War III, and looming return to the Dark Ages for women’s rights in US politics, I sense a lot of exhaustion and sadness, of cumulative personal and communal grief, which strikes me as more than just the dismal weather in my neck of the woods.
In the US, grief is supposed to be kept private, especially when a few months have passed and the person or animal you are grieving is not somebody who fits into the narrow confines of our culturally dominant idea of a nuclear family. To people with that attitude, I say “Screw you!”! So many people are hurting for so many different reasons, and it’s nobody else’s business to judge anybody else’s process or sensitivity. If you can’t relate, count yourself lucky (perhaps… but not really), and please, just move on. On some future day, or in some future lifetime, the universe will present you with this particular lesson and you will come to understand. I only hope that you will then receive support from kind strangers and friends and neighbors as I have been throughout this past year. Right now, the world needs unconditional kindness and love. So if you have some to share, please do. I don’t have any advice on processing grief either, but I have found an image helpful that somebody shared with me this past winter: Grief is like a really hot bath, you did your toe in as far and for as long as you can stand, and when the pain becomes too much, you pull it out. Take a breath, recover, and then you do it again. And again. And again. Each time, you enter a little bit deeper. And over time, you learn to lie in it, relax in it, and receive its healing magic.
Grief
Is a manifestation of love and respect
To honor the gift of companionship
Bestowed on us by those who have passed.
Do not rush me
For the sake of your convenience or comfort
Or a culture
That has forgotten how to embrace death.
Last year’s dream of me standing strong at the helm of a boat
In the eye of the storm
Holding hands with the elder (Lillian) on one side and the youngster (my daughter) on the other...
Oh fool that I was!
Thinking I was the strong one
Even though my gut knew that I was missing some piece.
In reality (of this dream)
They are the ones holding me up,
Youngster and elder,
As I stagger into the darkness
Of the solstice night,
Descending into Pluto’s realm
To face past lives
And hold my dead dog’s paw
Just one more moment,
Crossing the river of no return
For the illusion of a dog lick.
